The use of wireless communication systems and applications using mobile data communication continues to grow. Some applications may consider and take advantage of positioning information of a mobile device, for example social network applications, weather and traffic service applications, vehicle to vehicle communications, flying drone communications, machine to machine communications, and so on.
In wireless communication systems corresponding positioning protocols are implemented or standardised. For example, in 3GPP the LTE positioning protocol (LPP) is defined and specifies the communication protocol for communicating positioning data between user equipment (UE) and the communication network. Details on the specification are defined in TS 36.355. According to the LPP, the network, for example a base station (also known as eNodeB) or a relay node, may request an UE (also known as mobile device or terminal) to report its position and it may assist with network information to support the positioning method used by the UE. When the UE has positioning data to deliver, LPP also describes the protocol for transferring this information.
Furthermore, the network may request the UE to report its positioning capabilities (described in TS 36.355 section 5.1.1 “Capability Transfer Procedure”). In response the UE may indicate which positioning methods the UE is capable of. After this procedure the network may request the UE for positioning information. This is described in TS 36.355 section 5.3.2 “Location Information Delivery Procedure”. The request may include a specific positioning method to be used and may include a transaction ID to tag each request with an identification code.
However, in data communications in connection with rapidly moving communication partners, for example in vehicle to vehicle communications or flying drone communications, present LPP may not be sufficient or may induce a large communication amount for positioning data.
Moreover, further applications using wireless communications may require increasing amounts of data and increasing data rates, for example mobile video streaming. However, transmission capabilities in the network may vary significantly when a UE is moving from one location to another location. This may interrupt or a significantly degrade playback of streamed media data.